


10x10

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Boondock Saints (Movies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-19
Updated: 2006-12-19
Packaged: 2018-01-25 07:07:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1638155
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where there isn't a way out, they make one.  That's what saints do.</p>
            </blockquote>





	10x10

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Coop, Gale, Fi, Liz, and Kris, who were of absolutely no help deciding on a prison-related quote, but were very supportive of the concept!
> 
> Written for RagnarokSkurai

 

 

_Wherever any one is against his will, that is to him a prison.  
\- Epictetus _

1.

Ten steps clear the space from bars to back wall, and ten steps would clear it the other, could Connor but walk it.

He's sure they think it's torment, being further from his twin than mere steps can reach. They're wrong. Prison's made him tuck Murph deeper in his heart, a blade no doctor'd dare pull. If they'd try, he'd get the last laugh, he would. A dirty red one, and no ear not full of it.

Ten years to black the stones with an army, one soldier a day. In the new decade he'll march out with them, retake his blood.

2.

"Why," Murph asks him one day, "d'you suppose Joan of Arc recanted?"

The question slides between Connor's shoulderblades, its shaft impenetrable, barb blooming in his bloody hands. He breathes out over his Bible, ruffling onionskin, then rests his gun flat on it. "Fear, is all," he answers. "She was afraid."

There's the tinny clunk of the lamp's turning, like a penny dropping at an arcade. It stirs no voices. A bowl of amber swells the room; it lights no saints. "I've never been afraid like that, you?"

"Nah. Nor...doubted, neither?"

"Doubt," Murph snorts.

Their fingers meet on the whiskey.

3.

"It's never mine," he'd told Jenny Leigh, a dozen times if he'd told her once. But the doctors proved him wrong.

"Stick to stitches!" he'd bellowed as Murph lugged him from the clinic, hurling his hat at the phone girl--some college tart who knew to take _her_ pills, he'd bet.

"Son's not so bad," Murph told him over pints on the corner, putting out his smoke in piss. "You might get to name 'im. Hey! He might be..." low-browed look "called. Use another gun hand, we could, once Da..." and Connor split his flapping lips on his teeth.

4.

Time came for the brothers McManus to die.

They were cowards, said USA Today. Good riddance, bad rubbish.

They were originals, said the Washington Post, and quoted Thoreau.

They were a menace, said Fox News.

They saved my life, said a construction worker from Pennsylvania.

I was almost killed in the crossfire, said a nurse.

Blasphemers! howled the church.

Necessary, declared beat cops, but quietly.

Kickin'! opined Nintendo addicts everywhere.

They were _so cute_ , the girls sighed. But kind of evil.

"Time came for th' McManus brothers t' die," snorted Murph from a beach in Cancun, and snapped off the radio.

5.

One pearl-gray day, twins sat up sweating in their beds. The will-o-the-wisp that woke them slid from their grasping fingers like the silk of the Virgin's shroud. For long moments they hunched, seeking, but the symphony had only played once. They'd squandered its echoes.

"Did y'--"

"Did y'--"

Their heads shook 'no' together, unable to hold another answer. Throwing back sheets from scarless chests, their hands said nothing.

They shaved together from the battered sink, three sweeps each jaw. Slunk into dirty coveralls, stretched wool over their matted hair. Shuffled downstairs between narrowing walls, into a day grown strangely darker.

6.

"So I told the fuckers, watch out or I'll send them bleedin' Boondockers after y'! You shoulda seen--"

A hard hand closes over yours. You jerk to glare at the scrawny twat ruining your story, but it dies unborn when you see him ( _faggot, nelly, mary_ ) staring slit-eyed back at you. Silence spreads around the table, cut by Smitty's chuckle. Franco stomps him good.

"Can we talk, Captain?" he asks you--Smecker, that's his name. "They need your help."

You follow him to the alley. You know the boys'll make you sore for that, but fuck 'em. You're needed by the _Saints_.

7.

Driving to SafeMart for butts and malt, a fucking great truck knocked off Murphy's head. He remembers the hideous crushed-china sound as Connor gripped his face, screaming "Talk to me! To me!" Remembers falling out of a skyful of stars.

"'f my bits are gone, end it," he begged his brother, whose hand he couldn't feel. But the prick called an ambulance.

For years, Connor fed Murph with smoke-sweetened fingers while he cursed at God. He kissed him where he felt it. He pushed their beds together while the ventilator sighed by the wall.

" _Mission?_ " Murph gasped one night, and Connor smiled, "You're it."

8.

"To Paul!"

"Paulypoofter," Murph cried, and upended the rest of the glass on the grave. "May you be drunk enough to miss the Devil."

They walked back alone through the cemetery, hunched beneath a shelf of sky. Winter trees surrendered to it everywhere. Murph's foot skittered on icy water, then dumped him on a stone.

 _David Della Rocco_ , it read.

"Christ, I stepped on Roc!"

"Well, get off 'im! It's bad luck!"

"Worse luck," Murph muttered, "for Roc."

"Pauly was the last, y'know. Our last--faithful. Did you ever think...think which of us--"

"Don't," Murph whispered. "Don't."

9.

"How many?" Connor bawled across the dusty shed.

"I count twelve--no, thirteen armed." With the unlucky number, Murph kissed his knuckle. "Your side?"

"Eight at least."

"Fuck!"

"Yea, _fuck_."

Murphy kicked his bag, freshly fired gun searing his jaw as he pulled up. "One grenade. Fuckin' _one_!"

"That might do for this side--"

"But not for all. I know, I know!"

Their eyes met, sharp and bright as a hammer on a steelhead nail.

"Well," Connor said, "is it all in?"

"That's what _she_ said."

"Pisshead," Connor said affectionately. "On three, then?"

Murph's thumb slid through the pin. _Ping._ "Three."

10

His mouth. Connor's almost decided. Murphy's mouth is the best of him, sensual as penmanship, sturdy as a scar.

Or it's his hands. They recall kites to Connor, lightning fast in dips and glides, or ship sails when they're still. Murphy should play an instrument, he thinks, with more notes than a gun.

His back, too. It's a good back, strong like clasped hands. The path of Murphy's spine uncurls like a question mark that forgot it was asking. And when he talks in the shower-- _swift, soft, melodious_ \--water follows its curve and pours between his thighs, where Connor won't ever touch.

Maybe.

 


End file.
